Amazon to cut price on Kindle e-reader
4/12/2011SAN FRANCISCO — Amazon.com Inc. is cutting the price on its Kindle e-reader, but the change has a trade-off: On-screen ads.
The online retailer was set to announce Tuesday the new Kindle with Special Offers will cost $114 — $25 less than the lowest-priced Kindle — and include ads on the bottom of the device’s home page and on its screen savers. Seattle-based Amazon will start shipping the newest Kindle on May 3, and it will also be sold in Target and Best Buy stores then.
Kindle director Jay Marine said the release of a cheaper, ad-studded Kindle is Amazon’s way of getting the device into the hands of more people. It also shows Amazon is getting more aggressive in its bid to lure consumers tempted by competing e-readers and bombarded by ads for Apple Inc.’s latest iPad and a growing number of competing tablet computers.